The Spaces, Between
by oftimeandspace
Summary: Seven years, seven encounters, and a girl and a man trying to understand what it all meant.


_first_

The day Hermione receives her Hogwarts letter is a humid Tuesday filled with the buzzing of various insects and the faint swish of the neighbor's sprinkler system three houses down.

For the first time her name looks like it belongs, all curves and swoops and twirls that signify her uniqueness, a new start in her life, completely unlike the blocky letters that march with determination across her primary school work.

This memory is what she is focusing on when Professor McGonagall purses her lips tightly, and asks how exactly she and two of her Housemates ended up in a deserted bathroom with an unconscious troll. Beside her Head of House Professor Snape watches Hermione with an expression of blank anticipation, all angles and heavy robes and coiled tension.

Hermione recalls the curl of anticipation she carried through that summer, because she was different, she was a witch, of course the other children could never understand her. And the way Hogwarts had gone all wrong and become just another succession of days passing in a blur of sadness as she wished somebody would notice how hard she was trying, how badly she wanted somebody to say "Hermione" like it wasn't an unwieldy word on their tongue to get over with as soon as possible.

She looks at her professor and lies, and feels her wand hand twitch with fear that this too will fail. Her eyes slide towards Professor Snape, and his eyes flicker for a second, something like recognition contained in their endless depths.

A lie is a little thing to pay for the price of belonging, she thinks, and smiles.

_second_

If asked—which he never is, unsurprisingly—Severus would tell anyone who cared to listen that the worst part of Potter's damned second year was that he knew it was Granger who stole the ingredients from his cupboard and brewed a perfect Polyjuice Potion and he couldn't say a damned thing as he watched another Muggleborn girl claw a place for herself In this new world with nothing but her bravery and intelligence.

Instead he carries this memory like so many others, locked away and heavy, weighing him down, pulling the corners of his mouth tight into his perpetual scowl.

Afterwards, he remembers a pair of luminous golden eyes focused on him, glinting in the blinding sunlight of the Infirmary as he said, "well done, Miss Granger."

And her eyes shift, a brief flicker of something like hope. He shifts and withdraws the antidote from his pocket, a small deep blue vial with a thick liquid sliding slowly down the inside when he moves his hand down, observing its movement. "A pity your brilliance did not extend to the simple act of identifying a bit of hair."

And it is familiar, and so easy to watch another Muggleborn girl wilt underneath his words.

_third_

Hermione never tells Harry and Ron, but secretly she rather thinks Professor Snape is a much better Defense Against the Dark Arts professor than Professor Lupin. It's in the way his voice slides over certain words, picking the importance out of certain syllables, his hands gesturing smoothly as he tells them of a wide world that doesn't particularly care whether they live or not, a bunch of snot nosed puling Gryffindors such as themselves.

Beside her Ron hrrmps and mutters something under his breath, making an obscene gesture at Professor Snape's back. Hermione nudges his leg under the desk with her foot, pointedly, and ignores his expression of disappointment.

Behind his podium Professor Snape begins lecturing about the phases of the moon, and Hermione feels like something is scrabbling for purchase within her mind, an idea that is waiting for her to just apply the right combination of words to come to the surface.

She shakes her head slightly, to bring herself back to attention, and tells herself, yes, she most definitely will never tell the boys about these thoughts.

_fourth_

Severus Snape, contrary to popular belief, does not particularly loathe those fools of amorous couples anymore than any other attendees of the Yule Ball.

Mostly, it's that the Headmaster had asked him to participate in the damned thing in some fashion, and the other Heads of House had managed to swan off with the duties that let them enjoy the warmth and light of the Great Hall. So here he was, the warming charms on his cloak gradually weakening, blasting apart rosebushes as a way of keeping himself busy.

Nearby a muffled laugh catches his attention; he whirls, cloak belling out behind him, and advances toward the sound, fully expecting to find some errant seventh years trying to see how far they can undress before a professor catches them.

"It's _freezing_," a female's voice says, only to be met by a mumble of something and the sound of something heavy being passed between hands. He catches sight of the pair before they notice him, and blinks, having expected to see one of the other fools Granger calls friend. Instead he sees Granger swaddled in a too big cloak, talking earnestly to Victor Krum, pale skin and dark hair contrasting starkly against the sparkling blue of Granger's dress robes.

Severus casts a simple spell, shooting red sparks at a nearby rosebush, startling the pair. Granger's head snaps toward him, hair catching the warm tones of the sparks, and for a moment her hair is almost auburn and bright against her pale cheek, Krum silent and brooding next to her.

"Professor-" She begins, throat working, voice small and trembling, and Krum places a large hand on her arm, a show of silent support. And he remembers another pale girl with shining eyes and a brooding boy, and for a minute the clearing is silent.

"Five points from Gryffindor," he says flatly, finally, and steps aside as the pair scurries past him to the beckoning warmth of the Great Hall, and feels nothing but a sense of quiet resignation.

_fifth_

"There's a bit of tea left over." She says when Professor Snape enters the kitchen and looks about, feeling it is only proper to be polite now that they're seeing each other outside of the confines of Hogwarts. She dogears the page of the book she is reading out of habit and looks over at him. "And Mrs. Weasley made some biscuits earlier." Her hand slides across the pitted surface of the kitchen table, motioning towards the tin near the center of the table.

Professor Snape does not respond, merely slides into the seat on the other side of the table with a grace Hermione is quite sure she'd never be able to muster, and watches her with an expression of blank indifference.

Uncomfortable and feeling like she is slowly going to drown in the waves of silence radiating from him, she smiles and says, "I'm not a big fan of them, either, if I'm honest."

He raises an eyebrow at her, just barely, and reaches out a fishpale hand to take a biscuit from the tin and sample it. He shrugs, as if to say _I've tasted better_ and _accio_s a mug to pour himself some tea.

He never does speak, but Hermione figures this is as civil as he'll ever be, and returns happily to her dogeared page. When she looks up again it is to discover that her cup has been refilled and Professor Snape is gone.

_sixth_

Severus tells himself _the end is nigh_, four words he repeats in various permutations throughout what he knows will be his final true year at Hogwarts.

He performs his usual routine in the morning, showering, pressing imaginary wrinkles out of the fine wool of his cuffs, drinks the standard Hogwarts brew and watches the sun rise beyond the silver curve of the Great Lake.

It is quiet and still, the only during the day his mind is his alone, before the Headmaster has summoned him for his daily inspection of the blackened flesh signifying the nearing end of this struggle.

He thinks of many things during those quiet mornings; the way Lily made him feel loved, briefly, of how his mother cried when she'd discovered what he had done to his father, the way Albus' eyes had flashed in something like triumph when Severus came back on bended knee because it was too much, it was too hard, and he was twenty and _so tired_.

The halls are deserted when he finally leaves his quarters, the morning new enough that only the most dedicated of students will be heading to the Great Hall for breakfast. In the main entrance he passes Granger and she looks up at him, sleep smudged eyes and pearly teeth in a half smile.

"Good morning, sir."

He nods his head and motions her before him, and they step across the threshold together. He glances up briefly, noting the overcast sky above the dozens of floating candles above the tables, and catches her doing the same out of the corner of his eye.

_This is enough_, he thinks and takes another step towards the end.

_seventh_

It is over, and she doesn't know what to do, she _doesn't know what to do_, because Voldemort is gone and there is hysterical shouting and cheers and—

Oh God, this is the end, she thinks, frantic, and shakes as the last of the adrenaline drains out of her limbs. Ron wraps an arm around her shoulder, and they wait until Harry summons them, trailing him out of the Great Hall.

Alone, he tells them about the pensieve and the poisoned man, and something jagged in Hermione breaks, and she is sobbing before the story is even finished, while Ron looks at Harry in confusion and gathers her to him.

She thinks of seven years, of week upon week and thousands of days, and never telling him _I trusted you_, because at the end it was a lie, and he died without anyone to care he was gone, to bother with the burial rites, or even ask _where is Severus?_.

This is the worst part: all those gaps of inches and years and misunderstanding, of never reaching the right moment, the right words. Hatred and fear and exhaustion, and at the end he suffocated alone for the misgotten pleasure of taking the wrong wand from the wrong man.

It is fitting, she thinks, that the one who cries for him should be a Muggleborn girl from Gryffindor.


End file.
